The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 64: Feet of Clay Pt 2 (Affable Tyrant)

Episode Date: October 11, 2021

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel, read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, Part 2 of our recap of “Feet Of Clay”. Cobblestones! Clues! Pigeons!Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail]: www.patreon.com/thetruthshallmakeyefretWant to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:Feet of Clay - The Annotated Pratchett FileFeet of Clay - Discworld WikiJoanna’s Inktober thread - TwitterAndrew O'Neill - Occult ComedianGrace Petrie | ConnectivitySexy Death and Cowgirls | The Wilsons - BandcampAre Sherlock Holmes and Spock Related? - FIlm School RejectsKumbali and Kago, Cheetah Cub & Puppy Friendship - YouTubeGrammelot (not Gabblegot!) - WikiWho Is the Bad Art Friend? - NYTGames Played By Girls In Plymouth - 1960 Golem - Britannica Golem - WikiRemember That We Suffered - YouTubeOrigin and meaning of undead - Online Etymology DictionaryMusic: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

May I say you're wearing a marvelously embroidered jumper. I've been in quite a good mood this week, mostly because of the television. Why? What have you, what have you watched? What have you, what have you seen? What have you seen? Ted Lasso is approaching its finale and it's been an amazing season. I'm deeply, deeply in love with Hannah Waddingham. Good. I'd say I came out today, but I haven't watched it yet. I've been saving because it comes out on a Friday.

I've been saving those for a little Friday evening treat. OK. All of the original Sabrina the Teenage Witch is now on Amazon Prime. So that's so. Oh, well. Deep in the nostalgia there. Oh, is it? It's rewatchable, is it? It is surprisingly rewatchable. OK. Not like trying to revisit a game on PS1 or something. Little bit of the feeling of revisiting a game on PS1.

There's some very, very bad green screen moments. So far, only one like, oh, God, that's racist moment, which for a 90s show is pretty good. The bar is low. Yeah, no, fair enough. I forget how long ago that came out, really. Yeah. I mean, 90s doesn't feel that long ago. We were kids. Yeah, but we are terribly, terribly old now, if you recall.

No, no, I do not recall this front scene. I'm not 30 yet. Yeah, but you will be really soon. So I wouldn't like go all in on the criticism. It's October. I'm not 30 till next June. I have over six months of my 20s left. Oh, sure. That's what I said. And then the time passed inexplicably.

I'm clinging desperately to them while doing nothing different to what I've done, really. How's your week been, then? You said you had a good week. Yeah, it's been good. Like I said, nostalgia TV. I've managed to write poetry, which is a plus. I wasn't sure how well Inktober was going to go this year. Is it? Once you started, it came more easily, kind of thing. Yeah, I thought I'd really struggle

because I've not really written poetry since Inktober last year, but it turns out it's still lurking in me somewhere. I'm good. Yeah, I've enjoyed what I've read so far. I must admit, must admit as if that was something I was not going to admit. I must say the thread, I think, I linked in last week's show notes and I'll do. So again, this week, this is if you are of the poetic persuasion and have a peep. Nice alliteration there.

Thank you. I was trying for a false, but it did not spring to mind. My week's been all right to work is good. I had a good yearly performance review. I always convince myself it's going to be horrible, especially because we've been obviously a lot of remote working for yeah, themic reasons. And so I never see my boss. So I just assume he's like building up with a huge list of grievances,

which did not occur. It's great. How much past as in there? I really loved my performance reviews in my last job because I was supposed to have one after, I think two months when I started because the two months I was technically probationary and then it suddenly hit three months and I realized I hadn't had one yet. So I turned to my boss and I said, I meant to have a performance review.

He went, oh, yeah, good job. I just baked two dozen cupcakes. Oh, what flavor? Twelve chocolate and twelve caramel bisque off. No, I figured if I have to make cupcakes and chocolate was the one of flavor specified. And then she said, do you like that I would use it as an excuse to experiment? We're going to a party tomorrow.

Yes, a party. A house party. It has been a very long time since I've been to a house party. Yes, it was quite some time pre-pandemic since I went to a house party. And it is literally next door to me. So I really don't have an excuse. And I don't want to like it. I'm sure it'll be fun.

But I haven't even had a housewarming party for here. And I've lived here over a year. Well, yeah, it kind of got to that point, didn't it? Obviously, we did not have a house party, housewarming party here because my husband doesn't like people much people. Certainly doesn't. He said if I threw a housewarming, he would leave, not like leave me, but like leave the house for me.

I've managed to have the old dinner party. God, I sound fucking middle aged. That serves you right for taking the first out of me for 30 minutes ago. Yeah, all right, this is hubris. This is definitely hubris. I kind of do fancy having some people over, though. Yeah, well, that's shit weather now. And we should start doing some socializing while we're allowed

before we go into next year's lockdown. God, please, no. Oh, I've seen Andrew and Neil live since we last recorded. Oh, yeah. Fucking amazing. Tell me about it. I haven't. It was just a treat. Partly it was just a treat to go to a gig in a small room.

I've been to only since the pandemic started, I've only been to one live thing. And that was the drag show I was talking about a few weeks ago, which was great, but that was a big space. It was a theater. There was lots of people. And this was a small room full of people. And it was an intimate thing. It was the Blue Moon in Cambridge, which is nice.

I've been there before. That's funny. And also there's just, you know, if you're an Andrew and Neil gig, like, you know, the audience is going to be of a similar vibe to you. Everyone's a bit of a weirdo and you're not going to be dressed funny or standing out. It was a bit like with going to the drag show. It was nice to know I was in a room almost entirely full of queer people

and my sister got to be the token straight. It was a bit like that with this. It's just nice to know you're in a space full of people that's very like-minded that you know is safe and accepting. Yeah, that does sound good. And Andrew is fucking hilarious. And yes, next week we're going to see Grace Petrie. Can we like very much?

Who love and listeners, go listen to Grace's new album, Connectivity. It is out now. It is out now. Available from all your usual vendors. Actually downloaded the music and everything. It's very unusual for me. I did so. I only downloaded the music so that it would count towards the album sales.

Now I'm streaming it through Apple Music on my phone, despite owning it because transferring it from my computer to my phone is effort. Yeah, there's so much effort. Yeah, I opened up Bandcamp for the first time in ages to do that. And there's a few albums I forgot I had that I quite like listening to. Sexy Death and Cowgirls. Oh, I forgot there was that on Bandcamp. Yeah, yeah.

I don't have that one. Next time we drive somewhere, I think I'll put that on. For context listeners, Sexy Death and Cowgirls is the debut album of a local band we're friends with called the Ivan Wilson concept. During the cattle round, that's not the side I want to see. They used to play regularly at a pub I worked at. And after I made a joke about that song,

they used to regularly introduce it as this is a song about the barmaid's favorite sexual position. Yeah, I very rarely paid for drinks when they were playing. I am unsurprised, but I loved that. There were some good times back in the bad old days. That was a very weird. It was a great pub with a live music scene, but there was a weird thing where all the bands overlapped.

I remember one music night they had on where they suddenly realized that three of the four acts had the same drummer and bassist. To the point where they... At the same time, yeah, it was just the same dude. Yeah, it was just... To the point where they both hopped on for the last act and did a couple of songs just to say they'd done the whole show. Absolutely.

Our small town music scene. Love it. Love a small town music scene. All right, well, I think we should probably crack on as we started rather late on account of my smart meter did not get installed. And then I started using the wrong computer to record. And then... Yeah, we should... Take that trip.

Do you want to make a podcast? Yes, I would like to make a podcast, actually. I've been wanting to make a podcast all bloody afternoon. Let's make a podcast. Hello and welcome to the Two Shall Make You Frat, a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, one at a time in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagen.

And I'm Francine Carroll. And this is part two of our discussion of Feet of Clay. Yep. The feet are still made of clay. They continue to be made of clay. Do you have something to say to that? I can't remember, sorry. Sometimes there's a quick...

It's only episode 64. I'll get the hang of it. Eventually around the time we had the ship and scramble. Speaking of spoiler warning, we are a spoiler light podcast, obviously heavy spoilers for the book, Feet of Clay, but we will avoid spoiling major future events in the Discworld series. And we're saving any and all discussion of the final Discworld novel, The Shepherd's Crown, until we get there.

So you, dear listener, can come on the journey with us. Printing across slick cobblestones and eventually slipping on a pile of autumn leaves. Happens to the best of us. It really does. Really, it does. I don't have much to follow up on, do you? I've got a couple bits.

Stacey on Twitter has clarified Spock's relation to Sherlock Holmes, Ancestral, by linking a cool article, which I will put in the show notes. And then literally all of our feedback for the last episode was corrections. So I feel like maybe we'd better dial up the effort on research again. Yeah, I should probably actually look stuff up. Yeah. So first of all. Pronunciation, it's Golem, and I did know that, not Golem. The King, whose name I said very wrong.

I don't even know how I said it is Nebuchadnezzar. So I've got something on him later in the episode. You, that's nice. It's not Percevant, it's Percevant. Percevant, Percevant. Fuck, I only looked that up myself a second ago. I think I got Percevant. I think I got Percevant from the witch smeller,

Percevant, in the first season of Blackadder. So you can blame Rowan Atkinson for me mispronouncing that one. I will. Fucking Rowan Atkinson. Cool. And then the glorious revolution that we both kind of stuttered over. Was ousting Catholic James II in favour of his daughter Mary and her husband, William Orange, which I think I stuttered towards, but didn't quite get there. So thank you, listeners, for handy corrections and what have you. And that sounds really sarcastic, but it's not.

It is helpful stuff. Oh, and Andy and Brum, I will retweet his tweets, but gave us some handy context for what Cromwell was up to, especially when it comes to the Irish. And with that, Francine, would you like to tell us what happened previously on Feet of Clay? Sure, previously on Feet of Clay. Hark the herald as he sings, and more pork shall have a king. Several murders, two old men in fog-shrouded

ankle-pork, much to the vexation of vines, whose calendar is further clouded by veterinary falling victim to venom or, you know, poison. But that doesn't start with a B. Anyway. Well, a horse doctor treats the patrician. The watch need clues for their murder case. Forensic alchemist, cheery little bottom and synesthetic superstar, Angla Von Uberwald, discover enigmatic evidence and lack thereof at the two murder sites, and Vimes finds religion on a scrap of paper.

Meanwhile, Nobby makes his own discovery in the form of his apparent ancestry. So this time in part two of Feet of Clay, which by the time this episode comes out, I will have tweeted, but it starts on page one hundred and thirty two with too late Angla remembered why she avoided this Lordhouse district at this time of month and ends on page two hundred and fifty six. And I'll do all the places along the shambles. You do Chiseling Street and we can push back off to the yard. Job done and dusted. OK.

As the actor said. No, I don't think that one works. This time just not got the same year for it. In Feet of Clay, part two, the games afoot as detectives get down to business. Angla and cheery head to the slaughterhouse district to meet Mr. Sock of the Butcher's Guild, an interviewer's hardworking golem, Dorfel. Dorfel claims no knowledge of the mystery murders. And as Angla breathes the words in his head, she finds old writing that matches the paper left in Father Tubelkeck's mouth.

As the detectives leave, Dorfel makes a request to Mr. Sock for a night off as of sunset. It's a holy day. They with a capital T meet to discuss the plan with a capital P. But what about the watch? Veterinary is in bed with Vimes guarding until our commander gets dismissed with little cordiality. Vimes borrows thin sold boots from a palace guard and takes himself

for a nostalgic walk through the fog filled city until a mysterious extra statue leads him on a hectic chase and slick cobblestones send him arse over tit. As Carrot combs through clues and comes to a conclusion, Nobby and Fred inform him that Dorfel, the golem with a broken matchstick clutched in clay hand has confessed not just to the murders, but to everything. His confession doesn't match some key details and Carrot opens up his head to read his chem and realizes the writing in Tubelkeck's mouth was the golems version of a kiss of life and aura flickers as Vimes enters

and Colin and Nobby head off duty to commiserate over Nobby's newly elevated status. Vimes and Carrot discuss the golems decapitated matchstick as Angwer follows Dorfel's trail. She finds a meeting place where 12 creatures that smelled of merchandise gathered and we see scattered matchsticks and the writing on the wall. Nobby and Colin head out for drinks and with enough ale in him, Nobby finds pride in his lineage and buys a round or two for the bar. Meanwhile, Angwer reports Vimes tells him of the intense grief lingering

at the place the golems met. They head for drinks at the bucket and we briefly revisit the robbers from Act One. Back at the mended drum, Nobby, drunk as a Lord, meets a newly unemployed candle candlemaker. Back at the watch house, Cheery finds arsenic in the grease from under Father Tubelkeck's fingernails and finds pieces of Dorfel in the mystery clay. She informs Vimes and Angwer walks her home, offering her a few handy pieces of femininity. Constable Downspout keeps watch as a white golem lurches

through the city, as the golem Dibbock commits suicide, a roar shakes the city and Dorfel silently screams. Vimes dreams of clues and he's woken with a rush to the palace as veterinary takes a turn for the worse. The poison's getting to him in the night and Vimes posits his journal as the cause. The palace staff are interrogated again. Vimes learns that the maid Mildred Easy of Cockville Street is missing from work. Carrot and Angwer track golems and find multiple suicides across the city and Cheery tracks arsenic and finds none in veterinary's rooms.

In the rats chamber, the guild heads meet and discuss the need for a new ruler. Kings come up again as Mr. Slamp puts forward Nobby as a puppet. Vimes looks in on Cockville Street and finds himself in time for two funerals, Mildred's grandmother and younger brother. Carrot and Angwer interrupt a riot at Gimlet's Delicatessen. While his chicken and beef are technically poisonous, the rats he's been feeding people just might be. Cheery finds arsenic in the rats procured from Gimlet's and Colon goes to speak to Weemad Arthur, a local rat procurer who claims to have picked up the rats

from beneath the cattle market and Colon tries to avoid stupidity as Nobby gets invited to a party. Good stuff. Lots. I'm not apologising for length anymore. Just lots of stuff happens in the book. It does, yeah, it does. It said the thing about watch novels is the details kind of matter.

Yes, down these murder mysteries. Shall we do our little helicopters, our little loincloths? Did we find any? I'm not going to lie. Normally, I will try and stretch for something. I just couldn't do it this week. That's fair. It's too foggy for helicopters. It is way too foggy for helicopters.

We don't want to encourage kind of dangerous behaviour. Exactly. And it's not the weather for loincloths. No, and even if it is, we wouldn't be able to tell who's wearing them and who's not. In the fog? Yeah. Thank you, Francine, for helping me with the bit. What a friend's thought, but for enabling nonsense. All right, let's go straight onto Quicks, then.

Oh, actually, no, hold on. Something else, Mended Drum. We always keep an eye on whether it's Mended or Broken. Yes, the Mended Drum is currently Mended. Anyway, Quicks. Quicks, I'm first. I think you got the pick of the letter with this one. I'm not going to lie.

I suggested that neither we, instead of both of us having quotes, we just both had this one for the episode. The tincture of night began to suffuse the soup of the afternoon. Now read the rest of it. Lord Vettanari considered the sentence and found it good. He liked tincture particularly. Tincture, tincture. It was a distinguished word and pleasantly countered by the flatness of soup.

The soup of the afternoon. Yes, in which may well be found the croutons of tea time. He was aware he was a little lightheaded. It's us at 2 a.m. That is absolutely a sentence that could have come from us at 2 a.m. I'm trying to communicate in the group chat. Yeah, that's it. What a beautiful...

What did we decide the morning was? Smoothies. Smoothies, yeah. So the soup of the afternoon could gently heat the smoothie of the morning, which is revolting. In so many ways. Because I find soup slightly revolting. Yeah, I know you do.

And you told me it was a hot smoothie and I'd love to really get over that. Well, it's only that kind of soup. I don't like the hot smoothie kind. You like chunky soup. I don't mind chunky soup. I like a broth. I like a noodle soup. Yeah.

We haven't made that for a while. Noodle soup. Yeah, I do a really good pork belly ramen-y type situation. Anyway, sorry, not relevant. Kind of relevant. Soup was at least mentioned in the quote. Mine is also weather-related. I thought I'd pick practice go at the same sentence, basically,

although obviously he wrote that one, too. The clouds had settled somewhat, so that up here, six stories above the streets, it was possible to believe you were on a beach at the edge of a cold moonlit sea. The occasional tall tower or steeple rose out of the clouds, but all sounds were muffled and pulled in on themselves. Midnight came and went. Constable downspout watched and thought about pigeons.

I didn't really need the last bit. No, the last bit is the nice little clunk at the end of the poetry that we love so much. Yeah. Yeah, not much to say about that. Just another one of Pratchett's lovely little bit of descriptions that I enjoyed. It does make me think a bit about that Mary Poppin scene, you know? Oh, yeah. Up where the smoke is all billows and curls.

Constable downspout thinks about pigeons. Still a better cocky accent than Dick Van Dyke. Well done. Thank you. The bar is low. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I mean, hop over it in a jaunty fashion. Anyway, you and I are so well known for our jaunty hopping. I jaunt, I hop.

When I'm playing with the little dog, we. Oh, yes. I am veritably bound. Oh, I've got a weird energy today. I'm sorry. I kind of like it. It's a good vibe. Right, characters. Let's talk about characters. Should we talk about Dorfel?

Oh, Dorfel. Oh, Dorfel. Oh, he's so sweet. We should have said this last week, but the fact he was trying to save Father Tugelkek by doing that is just adorable. It's incredibly sweet. I'm a big fan of Dorfel. I'll talk more about all of the golems later, because I could have gone down eight different rabbit holes going down that rabbit hole.

Yes, yes, I picked one and you'll hear about that next week. But I may or may not have lost an hour looking at how Yiddish developed as a language. Anyway, but yes, Dorfel, the golem, the very sweet golem. Has kind of really clumsy, false confession. Yes, I did everything. Yes, after I think I really enjoy how clever he is when he's interrogated back at the Butcher's Yard.

The Castle Market area, OK, where he clearly explains, obviously, I wasn't there. I was in the slaughterhouse because it must have happened recently. And obviously, I have been working. Yes, even though they could tell he was lying. Yeah, it's a nice little bit of grinding. And it's like showing his working. Yeah, but like in this case, it's really clever rising

because Pradjid manages to put quite a lot of emotion into the conversations with Dorfel, despite the fact that the point is he's a golem and he's somewhat. Not emotional. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because, you know, we only start really seeing how much depth of feeling the golems really have towards the end of this section. Yes. And I don't know. Yeah, there's something almost more.

More moving about the kind of glimpses of emotion you get when it's so stilted and difficult for him. But yeah, especially with the whole thing about, you know, the golems were rebelled by working too hard. Delicious compliance. One of my very favourite things, although I really hate the malicious compliance subreddit because it's always weirdly smug.

Yeah, it is. I was hoping it would be more. I don't know. Less of those fucking bullshit stories, basically. But what I was expecting. Do you think people do that? Just go on the Internet and tell lines. Just just lie on the Internet. Everyone's very honest.

Look, it's very difficult for us to think about how dishonest people are on the Internet because. Yeah, we're giant over-sharers with no shame. I mean, I have a lot of shame, but that's just because I'm an ex-catholic. I've learned to bury it deep down. Yeah. Oh, dear. So the speaking of shame.

Speaking of shame, the Judas Goats. Yeah, he should be ashamed, but he's not. This is obviously Judas Goats, but they are a real thing. Yeah. Mostly used with sheep because sheep are very stupid and will follow things. Sheep are so stupid. I love them.

They terrify me, but I love them. I like to pronounce it Yadus Goat in my head, even though I know it's meant to be Judas Goat. Just because I like the word Yadus Goat. Yadus Goat is quite satisfying to say. Yeah, but the, yes, the concept is that the little goat. Walks into a room calmly and the sheep who were panicking follow the calm influence and then get slaughtered.

Yep. And that is the thing. In a less grizzly version of this, perhaps cheetahs who are in captivity in zoos or whatever, for largely good reasons, I think, in these good zoos are supplied with emotional support dogs. They're given puppies while they're still cubs because it helps them deal with what would otherwise be

a very stressful environment. They see how chill the dog is. Because cheetahs are just constant balls of anxiety, usually. Yeah. They are not like the chill. Massive bosses that tigers are, for instance, or leopards they are. They're not real. They're not one of the panthera, are they?

They're not technically one of the giant cats. No, they're I can't remember. There is slightly different genus, I think, not genus. The other one. Yeah, yeah, genus is the feline. And then. Look, look, look, here we are. This is happening again. You're saying these things and you don't know, and I know you don't know

because I can see your face and I know you, but people are going to think you think you know and they'll feel like they need to correct you. Yeah, but that's how I learn. OK, but and then people tweet us and then we get engagement and then more people hear it. It's about engagement, Francine. OK, but that's going really close to the idea of that shit journalism gets more engagement and, you know, that makes me sad.

OK, yeah, I'm pretty sure you're right, though. I don't think cheetahs are part of the. No, they're not panthera. Yeah, yeah. Point is like lions and like tigers and bears. I have really like similar skulls and that. It's hard to tell apart when they're just skeletons, but cheetahs not. Yes, they're very anxious, so they get pet dogs. How the fuck do we get? Oh, the goat, right? Yeah.

I highly recommend going on YouTube and just looking at videos of baby cheetahs hanging out with their emotional support puppies, because it's good for the soul. Good for the soul. That'll fix what I was. Yeah, what else have we got down? Oh, wait, sorry, they they kind of skipped over that because it's not a character. It's not a characterist, but it's kind of a group of characters. And I like how the mystery is being built here.

This is on page 143 in the Korgi paperback. In a way, it didn't matter who they were. They're on anonymity was part of the whole business. They thought themselves part of the march of history. Men who felt that the time had come. And they're the the ones who were plotting to obviously bring down veterinarian put a king in his place. Yeah. They are fulfilling the role of Edward.

Look, Edward had in many terms, the plotting to. Yes, the. I liked how. Mr. Slant was like. And now it is saying men doing it or whatever. When no, it is like everyone who did it obviously thought that. Everyone thinks they are the sane and righteous one when they are plotting to murder the patrician.

Yeah, yeah. Yes, is a tyrant, but he's a good tyrant. Yeah, he's a he's a. Affable is not the way. Oh, affable tyrants, quite good. Affable tyrants, that's not particularly affable. Yes, that's going on your business card. As you know me, I'm very rarely tyrannical. You weren't there when I had to organize hanging the bunting at the baby shower

a couple of weeks ago. No, I was not. Anyway, sorry. And then we have Constable Downspout. Yeah, who get it? He's job. He's good at his job. He's happy with his pigeons. Yeah.

But I quite like the bit where Vimes lists off who's guarding veterinary. You have Constable Downspout, the gargoyle, and then you have Corporal Gimletson, Constable Glod's nephew, Constable's Flint and Moraine. So it's nice to see Flint and Moraine again. They're doing well. Yeah, it's. It's interesting how quick as about the gun time frame is a bit murky, but how quick the watch came around to many non human.

Well, that was part of detritus's vicious recruitment drive during men at arms when Carrot formed the city militia. Oh, yes, of course. Yes, it was. Yes. And that's where the famous Ancmalpok Sun comes from. As I was walking down Peach Pie Street, the watch came along and said, you'll join the watch or get your g'hu log kicked g'hu log head kicked in. Well, remembered.

So I went down to my room instead of trial, a laugh, a laugh. And then we have speaking of dwarfs kind of. Thomas Strong in the arm, Thomas Strong in the arm. I I found this quite entertaining. Bratch, it's really good at skewering. Certain types of people in a brief paragraph when he doesn't need to, when he doesn't need to. Thomas Strong in the arms, you know, he's a side character.

And this is Thomas Smith has given himself a dwarf name and put a scowling dwarf holding a hand there, holding a hammer on his sign. And he hasn't actually claimed his his products are dwarf made, but very much heavily implying it. Of course. And then when the Committee for Equal Heights is objected to it. But most of the committee's human

because dwarfs don't actually really care about it in the same way. Yeah. They're the. It's getting skewering both ends of a common argument there, isn't it? Yes. The people who will take advantage of people and the very well-meaning, but ultimately not very helpful activists. Yes, yes.

And I don't really mean the word activist there, but you know what I mean. I do. People who will complain on other people's behalf. Whether those other people would like to be complained on their behalf or not. Yes. Yep, that was pretty much what I was trying to say. Oh, my God, sorry. Gosh.

I've just had a day of waiting for things to happen today. And now my brain is catching up with actually having to speak. We'll get there. So yeah, so I enjoyed Thomas Strong in the arm. It's just a very fun skewering moment. And then we have we mad Arthur. We mad Arthur. What a fun new introduction introduced right at the end of this section.

Very, very tiny Scottish man. Yep. I wonder if we'll meet wonderful ever meet any other tiny Scottish men in these books. Oh, who could say? Who could say? Criminist. But yeah, I like him as a little vigilante business man almost in in the guild controlled world event will book.

I like the way it addresses the economy of being a few inches tall as well. The difference between a loaf of bread being a meal for a day and a meal for a week and also a bedroom for a bit. Yeah, he's extremely violent, extremely violent, but in a way that I sort of sympathise with because it's the second wrapped catcher we've had in as many books. He is. You're right. I miss that very different to the last books wrapped catcher.

Yes. Although the last one as well, to be fair, it did seem like he was good at his job. He just got a bit of a bit of a death there, bit of a death there. But I like that the slight difference. And I'm not sure why the difference is there is that in the last book, I can't remember the name. I think it was Mr. Pounder, the rat catcher. Yeah.

When he dies and meets the death of rats, the death of rats, his reaction is sort of a ha ha ha. And now you're going to be a rat. Yeah. Reincarnation believes in you. Yes. Whereas with the bone rat turning up as we mad Arthur's hunting, there's almost like a they don't interact with each other,

but you can feel that the bone rat sort of respects it as a job well done. Yeah, it's it's more one on one kind of. That is the difference between a person hunting a line with a sniper rifle and like wrestling it, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And I like that he also likes to give the wasps a sporting chance when he's tearing out their nests on the way home. Wasps, as the sign said, that's my note on that.

Wasps. So yes, I enjoy we mad Arthur. There's something about a tiny short and terrifyingly violent man who's also fighting the guild because he's decided he doesn't like it. Wonderful. It's a very specific type you've got there. Do you want to? Yeah. Yeah. Very hard to find. Locations. Yes, locations.

I can't remember if we've definitely been to the bucket in Gleam Street before, but I don't know if we've talked about the bucket in Gleam Street before. I don't recall. But yeah, the policeman's bar anyway. Yes, they've adopted it as their own and the sort of entertaining robbers who clearly don't quite know how things work when they turn up. Poor sods. What a week they've had. Well, it's another one.

Those scenes obviously anger roughs them up a bit and police brutality and blur, but also you can very much see this one being filmed. It's the harder to sympathize with the recipient when they literally just kidnap the person. Well, there is that. As far as they knew, they just kidnapped a random woman, not a policeman. I don't think she's actually savaging them. I think she's mostly just scaring them off.

Yeah, to the flesh wounds. Yes, they're the filming bit. You're quite right. The kind of stoic conversation about anything else for a minute. Everyone very politely having a conversation as you just hear an in the background, especially when Vime's turning to carrot and just sort of going, are you guys, are you guys getting along? All right, fine, sir.

Some people think there might be problems. There was a thud and a faint bubbling noise. We work around them, sir, said carrot, raising his voice slightly. Yeah, he's very understanding as carrot. And then we have Cockville Street, the ancestral home of Samuel Vimes. Yeah, we did the other side of the shambles, the poor but law abiding. Yeah, this isn't the shades where it's sort of not the shambles. Sorry, yes, the shades.

Yeah, the shambles is a place is a street in Yorkshire. Yes, very pretty. Now, in York, I should say, the shades is the sort of poor part of town that you wouldn't want to walk through in a dark night. It's vicious, whereas Cockville Street is the poor part of town where everyone is very proud. And yeah, you can that you might there might not be anything on the table, but the table would be well strung, well scrubbed.

Yeah, the idea of to pour to paint to proud to a whitewash is something that comes up once or twice in the Discworld books. And I've never heard of like any snobbery surrounding whitewash before. It must be a very it must be a thing. Yeah, but there's what's the line? Oh, you might as well rename the place Memory Lane. Yeah, but it's it's the interesting aspect of the class thing. I like especially the northern side of my family was very

working class that had got up to middle class and was incredibly proud about it. Right, yeah. Mostly demonstrating wealth through some terrible carpets. They were just awful. Well, the 80s happened to. Interior, to England, didn't it? Yeah, 70s and 80s really left its mark on water fountains. Yes, the biggest mark, historical mark of the 70s and 80s was the carpets. So much brown. So much brown.

All very brown. Yeah. And yeah, no, it's a cool little insight into violence is upbringing, though. Yeah, it does mention like, oh, we were all big families. And I don't think we ever hear about any violence of siblings that I recall. But no, it's just sort of implied that it was a large family. It's thinking about the way people think, the way something about the absolute pride in this poorest part of town means

that they're the ones who follow the rules the hardest. And it reminds me a lot of that sort of whole bootstraps thing of yeah, the way marginalised communities, especially are sort of encouraged to turn on each other rather than working together. Yeah, you could be one of those. The crab bucket thing, which is another thing that will come across at some point. Yeah, crab bucket was exactly what I was talking about there. Sorry. Yeah.

But yeah, the the quote I nearly chose mine, actually, was people said there was one law for the rich, one law for the poor. But it wasn't true. There was no law for those who made the law and no law for the incorrigibly, incorrigibly lawless. All the laws and rules were for those people stupid enough to think like cockbills, straight people. Yeah, yes.

And that Vimes has kind of a bitterness to the memories there as well of the the people he came from. Yeah, it very much reminds me of just local Facebook groups. Anyway, we've got the rats chamber. The rats chamber. Yeah, this is a fun reference. The rats chamber is where the guild leaders meet. So the German word for council chamber is rats gamma. Is that so?

It is. I looked it up. I couldn't find the etymology of it. So if we've got any German listeners, you know, where the word rats gamma comes from, do tell us. Someone told us something about a German phrase after last week's episode. So we've got somebody. Yeah, it's also an anagram of Star Chamber, which was a criminal sort of civil court created by Henry the 7th, but it was abolished.

Anagrams, are we? Yeah, it was abolished after James and Charles the 1st both abused that power horribly, I assume. Monarchs. Very famously had a star decoration on the ceiling. And the decoration described on the ceiling of the rats chamber. Rats danced in a circle, their tails intertwining at the centre, I assume, as a reference to rat kings.

Oh, we do like a rat king. We do like a rat king. I'll save the full history of rat kings for another episode. But yet again, I will recommend the haunting of Isabel Cray, a really creepy young adult that has rat kings in it. Awesome. Also, as rats have come up, shout out to Daffodourk from our subreddit, who just got two really cute pet rats that he's named Ridcully and Bursa.

Yeah, very adorable. Rats are cute as fuck. God, I love rats. Anyway, and then obviously we've we've not actually talked about more pork as ankle pork for a while, but there's some sort of good insight into how it's running now, especially under veterinary. The fact that he'd taken the city and made it work. Especially if you look at the fact that we've seen.

We haven't seen veterinary come into power since the beginning of the books. It's obviously just the writing changed a bit. I can't remember the first book we actually met veterinary. But yeah, the patrician was different in the early books. And we've seen the city change as the books go on. He's talked about the fact that he's made the city work. Opening its gates to dwarfs and trolls. Improving it economically and then lending all the other places.

So much money that they can't really declare war because ankle pork technically owns the weapons. I can't remember if it's this book or if it's one we've already covered. But there's definitely a reference at some point to the more porky and national anthem being we own you wholesale previous books. But yeah, very good. And yeah, and vimes at some point, I think before that passage was talking about how ankle pork working as a machine

that does unfortunately crush the old the odd person in its gears. Yeah. Which is looking at it. Yeah, it's another it's an interesting way of looking at it. But it it keeps hammering home. What these people who are determined to have a king are so desperate to ignore, which is that Fetanari is the best thing for the city, if not best for the individual higher levels of the city.

Yes, although I kind of get that point in that. If the system continues as it is, and it all relies on that Nari, one day he will just die anyway. Yeah, and probably, you know, working out a sustainable system that would outlive the current tyrant is a good idea. In fact, there's where many nations have gone wrong. And that is very true, but eliminating the tyrant before you've worked out the sustainable system.

Oh, yeah, I know, because you think you can do better. Well, that is them working out the sustainable system, isn't it? Well, yeah, I suppose. From that point of view. Look, I think the real point, Francine, is that neither of us should become tyrants. I said to you, I'm pretty confident. I suppose if we work together, yeah, we'll be all right.

There will be a lot of spreadsheets. A little tyrantet in the country. A little tyrantet to get away in the summer. All right. Little bits we liked. Cobblestones. Cobblestones, yes, I forgot the first one. I've always really liked the idea, the concept of Vimes

navigating the streets, like more pork through the cardboard soles of his cheap boots via just knowing what kind of cobblestones are where in different streets. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know why. I just find the concept really pleasing. And I think this is the first book we have a proper look at it. And yeah, so that's what I pointed out. I like it.

I don't know how he knows the proper name for all of the different types of cobblestone. No, I don't know whether that's just something Pratchett happened to know. I wanted to shove in there somewhere or the Vimes are the secret side hustle as a. No, no, not going anywhere that cobblestone repair man. What is the name for someone who studies cobblestones?

Cobblologist. Cobblologist. Cobblologist, yeah. And like how confidently you said that. Yeah, that's just a breeze straight past that before anyone has the chance to write in. The Secret Society of Police Chase Interruptors, Joanna. Yeah, it's very hard not to just put every footnote

in every book as little bits we liked. But this is a good footnote one, actually, again, isn't it? Every time he's when he's chasing the mysterious figure and and every time close to it, some muffled pedestrian got in the way or a car pulled out of a cross street. And the footnote, this always happens in any police chase anywhere, a heavily laden lorry will always blow out of a side, a side alley in front of the pursuit.

Well, there'll be men with a rack of garments or two men with a large sheet of glass. There's probably some sort of secret society behind all of this. And I just really like the idea that there is some kind of anti police society that just goes around inconveniencing them in hilarious ways. I'm very into this conspiracy theory. Yeah, I'm inventing it now.

Like low level anarchists. Kind of a mix between clowns and anarchists, clown, clown, a kiss. No. And a clowns. And a yeah. Yes. Oh, that's a good place to shoehorn in what I told you earlier. So I learned today on no such thing as a fish, although it was an old episode, actually, that the Pingu, the lovely children's TV program, Pingu was always voiced by five people with a

clowning background and did a special form of special theatre gibberish called what was it? Gabel got or something now going to look up and go down a rabbit hole of that's not relevant to anything to do with Bradshaw. Yeah, I was very self controlling today. I think I did not do that, but I will be doing so this evening. But fuck what we were talking about. Damn it. See, this is what nearly happened to me earlier, but

I saved it for the recording, which is way more professional. Shade on Sherlock. Shade on Sherlock. Yeah, not just because it alliterates. I rather enjoyed the fact that although Pratchett rather liberally references Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle, he also kind of has a massive go at the concept behind some of the Sherlock monologues here. So he distrusted the kind of person who take one look at

another man and say in a lordly voice to his companion, my dear sir, I can tell you nothing, except that he is a left handed stone mason who spent some years in the merchant navy and is recently fallen on hard times because to paraphrase, just because his calluses look like that, is it? Yeah, well, it could be some dude who did his barbecue this weekend or whatever. Tattoos while he was drunk and in fact got seasick on a wet

pavement. Yeah, what arrogance, what an insult to the rich and chaotic variety of the human experience. Yeah, I just love the fact that Bind is like anti-Sharlock. Apparently, I've read in annotated Pratchett that would Wodehouse, PG Wodehouse used to do this as well and take the piss out of the kind of Sherlock Holmesian clue hunting. I can't remember which of his series of books it was that

annotated Pratchett mentioned, but it's not one I've read because I've only really read some of the Jews and Worcester ones. Yeah, yeah, same. It may well have done it a couple of times in Jews and Worcester. The thing about Jews and Worcester is I read them to be not quite in this world. It's a little through the looking glass experience for me every time.

Oh, they're such good fun. I should reread some of that. But yes, I remember they're there for a minute about mood, actually. Yeah, pick up a Wodehouse. Pick up a Wodehouse night at work. Dwarves and Rings. Rings and Wars. It's a fun little.

Cherry starts slowly expressing her feminine side. She's wearing earrings and Vimee sort of notices and says, you know, I didn't think Dwarves were Dwarves. She said, well, we're known for rings. But yes, of course, rings. No one quite like a Dwarf for forging a magical ring. Not a little literary reference. Well, literary reference.

Dwarves make rings in Lord of the Rings, obviously. And I assumed it was kind of a Tolkien reference. But Tolkien himself is obviously referencing back to Wagner. And it's a dwarf who makes the ring that is the focus of the ring cycle. Oh, God, I don't know my father. I don't know. I don't know my father. He keeps coming up on this podcast.

He does, doesn't he? I think we should we should exercise Wagner. That was good. That was good fact. But if he comes up again, I'm getting the bell in the book and the Bible. The bell on the book and the Bible. The Bible is the Bible. A candle, a candle, a candle. Bell book and a candle.

But how candles make have been made redundant? Hopscotch rhymes page with the two hundred and thirty four. Yeah, I am constantly weirdly obsessed with strange vimes, not vimes. I mean, yeah, obviously I'm obsessed. Obviously, I'm a bit obsessed with vimes. He's one of my favourite characters. No, rhymes, strange rhymes that sung while skipping and hopscotching and the rest of it.

Clapping games, exactly. It's really, really hard to research like origins of these things. Some of them go back as far as the 17th century, but there's these sort of weird ephemeral things that no one remembers where they come from. Like, I think we've talked on the podcast before about some of the weird ones to remember from childhood. Yes, yeah, yeah.

That especially I went to a Chinese restaurant to buy a loaf of bread, bread, bread. As one does. Who buys bread from a Chinese restaurant? Bee, if I'm trying to make it rhyme, OK, you know, if, yeah, it is a really interesting area of study that is, as we have again pointed out, full of quite a lot of bullshit because so much of it has to be. Yeah, it's all theorised.

It's. Things like there's not Ring a Ring a Rosie being about the plague. That's more of a very, very popular theory than actual fact. Yeah. But hopscotch rhymes. Did you find anything interesting there? Well, I really like, you know, vines is reminiscing about the hopscotch rhymes. And instead of kicking a stone, they kicked William Skuggins

and used to charl Williams Skuggins. He was trying to remember what you shouted as you hopped salt, mustard, vinegar, pepper or William William Skuggins is a bastard. And we get a payoff on 242 and he's asking what is it they do when they do hopscotch? And she says they sing Billy Skuggins is a brass stud. Yes. So the way that's, oh, yeah, until you read that aloud, I hadn't got it. Yeah, this is not my first time reading this book.

It's the first time I've got that. Yeah. But I like the way that things sort of twist and change shape over the years. But there is a hopscotch rhymes. Mabel Mabel set the table, a skipping rhyme. Mabel Mabel set the table. Don't forget the salt, vinegar, mustard, pepper. Oh, yeah, I do remember that one.

That was one of the double Dutch ones, wasn't it? Yes. When you started singing the condiments, you get to the... Yeah, I found in, I think that one I got from Wikipedia. So it just says in brackets, after pepper, rapid turning follows. I was never very good at, I was never very good at skipping. I could skip on my own, but the bit where two people hold the big rope and you jump in and out, I never really got the hang of. Um, I was okay at it for a little bit.

Um, before I had, as aforementioned, Mike Grosspert and accompanying complete lack of coordination for the rest of my life. Yeah, you have so much limb. So much limb. But for a little while there, I was like, get out of this little cow. But I obviously went down a rabbit hole of trying to research popular hopscotch rhymes and skipping rhymes. But partly to see if I could find any I remembered from my childhood.

And I found a really weird website. Oh, yeah. The main homepage seems to be, what was it? headington.org.uk and it's about a small town in Oxford. But the page of the website I found through Googling, and I only went back to the homepage to try and work out why this was there, was a list entitled games played by girls in Plymouth in the 1960s. And it was skipping roms and hopscotch rhymes.

And that's from an Oxford Sheetown website. Yeah. I'll link to this in the show notes and listeners can poke around it for themselves. That's actually an odd little thing like this before. And I do like the idea that some people are just putting completely their, their own random hobbyist shit on whatever website they've been told to make. It's a very, very old website. It's an old looking website, like a lot of it's in Comic Sans.

And there's like a page about old TV adverts and old jingles and things on there. It's just odd. Oh, I bet it's haunted. Definitely. Websites is a concept I keep meaning to write a story on. Oh, that's a good one. I might make that for a poem. Sorry.

Okay. As long as like we make it clear afterwards that I didn't steal your idea and like you don't sue me about a kidney. That is a reference that will make no sense in two weeks. Yep. Listeners, we're referring to bad art friends. Yes. They're very long New York Times piece that has rocked the Internet.

There's made some of us chuckle gently. Yes. But yeah. So from this list, girls played by games in Plymouth. No, games played by girls. Girls played by games in Plymouth. I brought this. I said I'd bring this back to you.

I said I'd bring us back to and now I've got to remember how to say it again. Nebuchadnezzar. And this is apparently was a popular rhyme in by girls in Plymouth in the 1960s. Really? Nebuchadnezzar, King of the Jews, bought his wife a pair of shoes. When the shoes began to wear, Nebuchadnezzar began to swear. When the swearing had to stop, Nebuchadnezzar bought a shop.

When the shop began to sell, Nebuchadnezzar bought a bell. When the bell began to ring, Nebuchadnezzar began to sing. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, etc. What the fuck? Surely. I've never heard this before as a weird intro stanza to Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, but apparently, girls in Plymouth in the 1960s, according to a weird website about a small town in Oxfordshire.

If any of our listeners are from Heddington in Oxford and can explain this fucking website to you... Don't point it out to the council though, in case that gets taken down. No, it's the best website I've ever found. I love it deeply. Is it a little bit? Try and find out what it's about. Yeah, I'm going to start an investigative journalism podcast about Heddington in Oxford. Fuck.

What now? Ratty hands, Francine. Oh, that's good. Yeah, no, nice short one to finish the rambler. This passage just made me laugh out loud, so I'm putting it in there. Vola Vonson, cream of rats, a gimlet all hygienically prepared. How do you mean hygienically prepared? Prepared, said Carrot.

The chef is under strict orders to wash his hands afterwards. The assembled dwarfs nodded. This was certainly pretty hygienic. You didn't want people going around with ratty hands. Just a stupid little inversion thing, which is a lovely little device. And then just the ratty hands. That made me laugh. Also, when Gimlet's discussing cooking with the rat,

and he talks about how you've got to make this pie a certain way, because all the noses have to peek out of the pastry. Stargazing pie, which is an actual dish, where you make the little fish heads and tails poke out of the... I've never eaten it. It looks gross, doesn't it? But very impressive. You know, I say that someone still eats, but she does look gross.

And I'm very much willing to eat every part of a thing and eat fish heads and what have you. We use every part of the rat. Of course. Hygienically. No waste, hygienically. Okay, sorry. So talking points.

Yeah. So my first thing is just the fuck. I forgot how dark this was. And it really is in the beginning. In the beginning, you get some cool little horror or noir tropes with all the fog and the coming out of the gloom and the cinematic aspects, as you were saying. But some of this made me properly shudder.

And I'm not sure if I did the last time I read it. And what's changed or whether I'm just paying more attention. Yeah. So is there starting with, I think the first thing I noticed was the bit with the white golem and screaming into the eye kind of thing. That's a hell of an image. Yeah. I would like the mouth opening kind of whatever.

And then the bits about the suicides. The golems killing themselves. The one where, was it Doric? I think Dibbock. Dibbock, sorry. It had his head smashed below a drop hammer, which by the way I'd never heard of. But that bit particularly really,

I mean, it's horrifying. It's very well written. But it reminded me specifically of this, basically a part in a video game where you're playing. I can't remember what it's called. It's something to do. I think it's Edith Finch. It's a really good sort of horror-ish mystery game,

but there's a part where you're playing a character whose job is decapitating fish in a cannery. So you're doing this repetitive motion with the controller, but you start going off into this fantasy world inside his head and it gets richer and richer as this story is told. And then it has this horrifying ending where suddenly the fantasy world is gone because he's cut his own handle for something.

Well, decapitating the fish. You don't see anything gory. Have you been playing? Well, it's like I said, it's kind of a mystery game, but you don't see anything gory. It's just the way the story is told into this really rich fantasy that ends with this horrible moment. It's incredibly good writing.

That's what that particular moment reminded me of. Christ. Yeah, that's very cool. And yeah, just the writing on the slate with the shame, sadness, whatever. Clay of my clay. Clay of my clay, I think, yeah. And yeah, just some of the description of Dorfel,

like the fucking, what, the emotions, the knowledge coming into his empty head and it would have bounced out, but he didn't have a mouth to scream. And oh, just the, was it Vimes describing the slate as having like words of black distress. And just got all of it. It's just really fucking grim.

And Angwer finding the room where the golems had their meeting and the... Like all the writing over each other. Yeah. No, since he said it last week, I've been like trying to imagine it a bit more cinematically as well. And yeah, all of this just cool, cool, right?

It's so good. And it is, you're right. It's very dark. And I forget how dark this one is as well, because, you know, I remember got golems being established. Yeah. Yeah. And the funny bits.

It's really funny in places, but yeah, it makes the dark stuff a lot darker. Yeah. I think, yeah, for me, the two images, the one of the one committing suicide with the drop hammer and the scene more so, but Dorfel with his empty head and stuff like going in it, even though the words have been taken out.

Ooh. Yeah. I mean, I'll talk a little bit a bit more about that next week, because I've got some thoughts on Dorfel's intelligence, whatever, which is just discussed. Yeah. And relevant next week. The scene of the sort of the white Gollum

as it runs through the city and it cries out. And I forgot to mention earlier, obviously we see the beggars again, Falol Ron. And, yeah, yeah. Gaspode and the like. Yeah. But that scene building up to the moment where Dorfel's kind of screaming silently.

There's this really, really quick anticipation that I nearly ended this section there, but I wanted to go just a little bit further, because otherwise next week would be huge. Yeah, yeah. But the way it builds up to that moment where Dorfel's screaming silently is amazing. Yeah, it is.

Yeah, cool. Shall we talk about Gollums? Amazing Gollum stuff. Yeah, obviously I wanted to go into the folklore a bit. But before we go on to Gollum, actually, just briefly, the script, the old holy writing that's in the Gollum's heads, is called Senatine. And I'm not sure exactly where Pratchett was getting it from,

but a couple of interesting bits that Senataph, we get from the Greek canos, meaning empty. Oh. Oh. And Cenogenesis is a biological term for when an individual develops significantly differently from its group, which is kind of what's the prefix. So I'm assuming it is this canos thing,

which the Greek origin of empty. Yeah, huh. I didn't go too deep into then the etymology, but I thought the Cenogenesis thing is interesting. So Gollums. So they've got their origins in Jewish folklore and the kind of references to other things to do with Jewish culture are really evident throughout the book,

especially when it comes to the Gollums. They were creatures usually created from inanimate matter, so sort of clay or mud. One of the earliest mentions of the word Gollum is the Bible in Psalm 139, verse 16, uses the word Gomi or my Gollum, and it means sort of raw material. So it's like connoting the unfinished human being before God's eyes.

The Mishnah uses the term to mean an uncultivated person, and the Mishnah is the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions. So it's sort of known as the Oral Torah. In modern Hebrew, Gollum is used to mean dumb or helpless and some kind of used for like a metaphor for a mindless lunkhead. And it passed into Yiddish as goylem, to mean someone who's lethargic or kind of in a stupor.

As a graph, I say modern Hebrew is sort of like the Israeli language and Yiddish is language that comes from Ashkenazi Judaism and has a lot of connections to Old High German. Oh, okay. Yeah, I could have easily done a whole tangent just on the origins of Yiddish, as I said. But Yiddish is something that a lot of words crept into modern parlance, especially in...

Like a lot of... There's a lot of refugees went to America, didn't they, from that part of Wales? Exactly. So trying to think of a really obvious one and now I can't. Kovetching. Kovetching is a really...

Yeah, schmuck. Kovetch is a really great Yiddish word that sort of means to be Erkutin. Yeah, it's griping, isn't it? But it sounds better, it's more onomatopoeic. Yes. So Gollum's like early stories come from early Judaism. Adam was initially created as a Gollum.

He was shaped from mud by people... The idea is sort of shaped from mud by people close to divinity. That's from the Talmud. And throughout the early Middle Ages, attempts were made to create Gollums. Passages from the Book of Creation were studied as a means to create an animated Gollum,

although there's very little in the writings of Jewish mysticism that actually supports the belief. Okay. But this is quite interesting. So the writing in the book, the writing in the Gollum's heads is the chem. It was believed that Gollums could be activated by an ecstatic experience induced by the ritualistic use

of various letters of the Hebrew alphabet forming a chem, which was any one of the names of God. And the chem would be written on a piece of paper and inserted into the mouth or the forehead of the Gollum. Okay. So yeah, that's pretty direct parallels. One of the most famous sort of folklore stories of Gollums is the Gollum of Prague,

which is a story from the late 16th century, in which I'm not going to pronounce this right. I'm sorry. Judah, Lowe, Ben, Bezelal, who was a rabbi of Prague and reportedly created a Gollum out of clay from the riverbank, brought it to life to defend the Prague ghetto, because at the time the Jews in Prague

were possibly going to be expelled or killed under the rule of Rudolf II, the Holy Roman Emperor. Okay. So the Gollum was called Joseph, and it was said that he could make himself invisible, he could summon spirits. And so Rabbi Lowe would remove his chem

before the Sabbath began, so every Friday evening, so that the Gollum could rest on the Sabbath. Oh, cool. But he forgot to on week, and the Gollum was worried it would desecrate the Sabbath, and eventually it was chased down and the chem was pulled out and the Gollum fell to pieces. And there was lots and lots of mysticism

and folklore around this. It was believed that the parts of the Gollum were still kept somewhere to this day. So it's quite a popular bit of folklore, and then there's lots of stuff that's then come into like modern pop culture that comes from this original Jewish folklore. Yeah, cool.

As I understand it, there's some more recent Jewish folklore as well, isn't there? Where like sometimes Gollum is not such a benevolent character. Yeah. But yeah, there's so much. I'm not, there's, yeah, so much of it. Yeah, I tried to not just do a whole PowerPoint presentation. Again, I quite happily should have.

But yeah, so Pratchett keeps some other references to Yiddish in the book. A lot of the Gollum names are Yiddish. Again, Dorfel's an interesting one, various research between annotated Pratchett and some forums. And the Discworld fandom Wiki have different ideas about where the name comes from.

The Discworld fandom Wiki claims that Dorfel means idiot, bumpkin, or wholly innocent in Yiddish, but I couldn't find any evidence for that. Okay. But I may not have looked hard enough. But from annotated Pratchett, Stettl is sort of a word for ghetto.

Yeah. Star, it comes from Stard, which is the German word for town. And Dorf is sort of a diminutive version, and it can mean village. So the idea of Dorfel sort of denotes a small village. Okay, cool. Dibbock is a word for an evil spirit or demon.

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. We also meet a Gollum called Zlob, which is Yiddish for a borish glutton. Oh, nice. So they've all got like quite derogative, derogatory names.

Yeah. Well, I mean, because there's sort of thought of as servants. I mean, I could also do a whole thing on Asimov and robots and... That's what I'm doing next week, don't you dare. And that's why I didn't. Yeah, sure. That's why you didn't. Okay.

I also only gave myself like two hours to plan this episode. But yeah, it's an interesting one to look at, especially I've seen a lot of conversations about the use of Gollums in pop culture considering it comes from a very active folklore from a... It's not quite the same as using references to the ancient Greeks because obviously Jewish people and have their own stories to tell are very much still around

and still very much a marginalized community today. So I'm not saying I have an opinion on that one way or the other because it's not really for me to... Yeah. I'm not sitting here and saying perhaps it should be cancelled for writing about Gollums. I guess I do have an opinion. I have an opinion that it's kind of...

If it's all right for him to have written about all the other folklore he has, which has many times been taken from still extant and often marginalized communities, then he's not been disrespectful. No, no, no. I'm only saying it because I saw the conversation... Happening specifically around Gollums being used in folklore because a lot of other times they used it is... Takes less from the original folklore

and kind of just takes this concept and runs off somewhere completely different with it, whereas this very much looks at the Jewish aspect of it by still using the Yiddish words. And it wasn't even specifically a conversation about Pratchit. I think this is a much more respectful way to use something from an existing folklore than... Yes, yeah. Oh, God.

I just realised Sarah Michelle Gellisface is looking at me again. Oh, sorry. You found it fluffy, mug. Yeah, I didn't really have anywhere to go with that, but I thought it was an interesting perspective. Obviously, my main knowledge of Jewish culture is mostly from TV, as it is with many people. And also going down the rabbit holes of research and Yiddishment,

I've had remember that we suffered from crazy ex-girlfriend stuck in my head for most of the day. I love how you finished off a conversation about potentially disrespectful. I feel like as that was written and performed by a Jewish person. I know, I know. Which is just that's the most lighthearted possible look at it.

And it is great, little very catchy. Yes, now it's going to be in my head. Well, that sent me down the crazy ex-girlfriend Yishu Brevithole. And I've also had, where's the bathroom stuck in my head for most of the day. I hate everything, but Yishu always gets in my head. Cecil for me is another really good one.

Anyway, sorry, I've taken us off on a tangent. Yeah, let's get back to the episode. Automation and AI you did want to briefly talk about. I know you're going to talk about it a lot more next week. Yeah, I just thought I'd have a little note on this in this week's because we have the candle maker that's been made redundant. Some of the general distrust of these golems,

rather than looking at it from like the robotics, the AI perspective in this one. I think it's worth looking at the parallels to just automation and the way that has, for a very long time since the bloody spinning Jenny, upset trades of various kinds, very good reason, and kind of where rank more pork is standing in that at the moment and having, in this case,

it's not a piece of new technology, it's based on old technology, except the golems come in new, isn't it? But yeah, people are just being powered out of a job by something that's doing a better, more consistent 24-hour job. The discomfort people are feeling with it as well. And I'd also like to just briefly look at the parallels

and Terry Pratt for being in a good light here in comparison to JK Rowling, where JK Rowling kind of looks quite deeply at the discomfort that some characters feel with the idea of a slave class of house elves. And if they want to work, that's the whole point, blah, blah, blah. And that's never really resolved. And it's really fucking weird, honestly, when you look at it.

It's kind of gross that she wrote the happy slave race that wants to be slaves. And I feel like Pratt is kind of doing the same thing with the golems here and is showing the discomfort in a much more meaningful manner. And will continue to do so. And yeah, I just... It's a really interesting point, actually.

Yeah. So yes, some things to look out for on the talking point, really, is that the way that automation and technology is affecting the industry and the way that a class that's seen as a slave class is treated and thought about in these books. And that's where I think he brings in the rebellion by working thing really well.

Yes, yeah. Yeah. Again. It's this backwards thinking, isn't it? Because Vime's saying, like, oh, he doesn't like that these tools have secrets. You know, they're not people, but they have secrets. And it's a very mental gymnastics-y way of looking at it rather than thinking they are complex enough

to have secrets. They're probably not just shovels. Angua's sort of discomfort, as well, with them as not quite human, but they're allowed to go around being not quite human where she has to really hide what she is. I had a look at the etymology of the word undead because Angua makes the distinction

between undead and unalive. And it wasn't really interesting enough to make a whole thing about, but undead was used from the 1400s to just mean something alive. But then it was Bram Stoker who used it in there. And it was undead with the de-capitalized as well. Ah, fucking Bram Stoker.

Anyway. We hate Bram Stoker. Oh, yeah. No, you don't like regular, do you? It is terribly dull. Anyway, speaking of Angua, and of Cheery, let's talk about gender in the watch. Oh, yes. This is just an interesting point.

Doesn't patch it makes them good points. Nah. All right. Hot take. Cheery's talking about, you know, you can be whatever you want to be as long as you're being a dwarf. Yeah, yeah. People constantly talking about mining,

going on about gold. The repeated joke Angua saying, I thought dwarfs love gold. They just say that to get it into bed. An anger comparing it to life in the watch. You can be any sexy like provided you act male. Yeah. There's no men and women, just a bunch of lads.

How much you sucked last night, how strong the curry was to be prepared for sexually explicit jokes. And I like that Angua sort of says, oh, that seems to have stopped now. They stopped after I joined in, and I did all the gestures properly as well. But some of them were quite small gestures. Yeah.

But I think I found it really relatable, obviously, because I came up in working in kitchens, and it was very much the same thing. If you were a girl working in that kind of industry, you had to be, you didn't just have to do everything the guys did. You had to be twice as tough. Yeah. Because if a guy does hurt himself

and actually has to take himself out of action, it's like, oh, well, he must have really hurt himself. Whereas if a girl does exactly the same industry, not industry, injury. In the industry. In the industry, then it's a, oh, gosh, can't take it. Yeah. Also why women do not get the same kind of pain relief

when seeking medical potential. Oh, yeah. That too. Fun little systematic gender oppression. Exactly. God, I hate gender. Systemic gender oppression. Yeah.

But I like the way that Cherie still finds a way to very quietly start being herself. She starts, you know, borrowing makeup from Angra and wearing earrings. And there's a great moment where she's, she's trying to choose a name for herself. Oh, I love that. I love it.

And Angra points out, you know, when you go with Cherie, because it's close enough to the one you've got already, so people won't notice unless you point it out to them. Yeah. That's a really lovely mind. When you've made out your mind to shout out who you are to the world, it's a relief to know that you can do it in a whisper. Yes.

From the same page, actually, I really liked the bit where she says, what image did the name Cherie conjure up? Was it a short person with the round face and a long beard and earrings and lipstick? Well, she's posed it was now or something like that. It's very sweet. I eat how supportive Angra is and B, that Cherie gets to take this coming out process at her own pace

and no one is actually having a go at her for it. Obviously, we'll talk a bit about it as other dwarfs start interacting with it more next week. But Vine sort of is surprised by it, because he's not seen a dwarf wearing earrings before. And Cherie slash Cherie has not started insisting on female pronouns with everyone yet, but very much has that with Angra. Although, again, I've noticed that even in normal logs,

Pratchett has, for instance, made sure of Bimes to saying the dwarf instead of he had throughout. Although she's not gendered, she's not misgendered by any characters, even though she's not out to all of the characters. And again, as she starts this thing, and Fimes just sort of goes, all right, earrings then. Oh, fair enough, yeah. Little bit preoccupied, I guess.

He is, but I just really like how it's handled, how it's done, and the way it kind of tackles this idea of gender and being. The people who were arguing that Pratchett was anti-trans in some way just clearly had never read this, hadn't said that. It's just so blindingly obvious. Exactly. There were the people who had googled Pratchett quotes to try and sift through and find one.

You can try and make some argument about it not being pro-trans, because actually she's trying to live her biological reality or what have you, but I cannot see that narrative in it myself at all. It very much feels much closer to the narrative of being a trans person. And it's a bit like, you know, I found a relationship to it, because I've talked a lot about not really liking gender and being a bit non-binary, but in a... In a whisper, not a shout.

Exactly. So I found it very relatable. Yeah. You've got plenty of your own earrings and lipstick. Yeah. And cool waistcoats, so sort of... So I know how to make cool waistcoats. You do know how to make cool waistcoats.

You are one step ahead. Next, Micromail. Yes, that's not... Don't encourage me to put a forge, Francine. You know, I thought about it. Okay. I want a forge. I'm proud of forge.

General very hot fires. I'm going to quietly discourage her, fair enough. Just want a little kiln. Or kilnet for the summer. Anyway, sorry. Right. That's all I had to say. I really love Jerry's narrative in these books.

I think it's so well written. Yeah. Francine, do you have an obscure reference for Neil for me? I do, and I'm risking another fucking ancient king thing here. On page 156, when Carrot's going through the letters that get sent to the watch, which is funny in its own right. You need the wisdom of King Isaiah Danu to tackle the letters. And so I was like, oh, what's that?

Who's that? But let's risk this again. And I think it's a combination of two separate figures from mythology or history. King Isaiah, I'm pretty sure that's how you say it, was known as the Hebrew prophet who predicted the coming of Jesus Christ. Oh, lots of foresight there. Prophet kind of chap. And then Danu is the most ancient of Celtic gods,

the mother of the Irish gods she's known as. And she is a wisdom goddess of inspiration and intellect. Awesome. Cool. I'm pretty sure that's what they were combined. It's some very random syllables with some coincidences otherwise. So yeah, I like that. I enjoy that.

Thank you. Cool. I think that's all we have to say on part two of Feet of Clay. Yes. We didn't get any feedback about whether we should do the watch in January. So I'm going to assume everyone hates the idea because that agrees with me. I, yeah, I have no skin in this game. You don't want to rewatch it either.

You just make me be a bad guy. I really like talking about TV, but I don't want to talk about the watch again. We'll plan January when we finish October. Okay, that seems fair. In the normal way. In the normal way. Yeah, I think that's all we have to say this week. We will be back next Monday with part three.

The thrilling conclusion. The thrilling conclusion which starts on page 257 in the Corgi paperback with afternoon Amanda Vines said carrot, shutting the door behind him, Captain Carrot reporting. Oh yeah. Someone also wrote in to tell us where Captain Carrot became Captain Carrot. Yes. Thank you for that clarification.

Yeah, that was, uh, it was, it was in the last one. It's the point. He didn't get promoted between. Yeah, that was one of the, uh, one of his rewards for being so good at stuff. Yeah. Anyway, so yes, we'll be back next week in the meantime. In the meantime, you can follow us on Instagram at the true shall make you fresh on Twitter at make you fret pod and Facebook at the true shall make you

fret. Join our subreddit community r slash TDS MYF email us your thoughts, queries, castles, arbitroses and snacks. The true shall make you fret pod at gmail.com. And if you'd like to support us financially, head over to patreon.com forward slash the true shall make you fret and exchange. Oh, sorry. And exchange your hard earned pennies or not so hard earned pennies for bonus nonsense.

And thrillingly over half of those methods, uh, won't go down next time. Mark Zuckerberg gets his password. Yes. Ah, what a week we've had for internet drama. Oh, that was a good day. Anyway, in the meantime, dear listener, don't let us detain you. I'm going to sort my life out. Oh, good luck with that.

I'll see you tomorrow.